Political Capital » Roger Runningenhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital
Politics blog featuring the latest news and analysis from Washington and the US. Political editors provide insights & data about today’s politics.Thu, 07 Aug 2014 19:48:32 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2Cummings, Chaffetz Seek ‘Higher Ground’http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-08-05/cummings-chafetz-seek-higher-ground/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-08-05/cummings-chafetz-seek-higher-ground/#commentsTue, 05 Aug 2014 14:17:35 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=137363Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jason Chaffetz may be attempting the impossible: Restoring comity in Congress. The political gap between the two House members could not get much wider. To close the gap, they visited each other’s district for what amounted to “sensitivity” training, a trek in the shoes of the other guy. “If you go and […]

House Oversight and Government Reform raking member U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), left, and committee member U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) in Washington, DC.

Reps. Elijah Cummings and Jason Chaffetz may be attempting the impossible: Restoring comity in Congress.

The political gap between the two House members could not get much wider. To close the gap, they visited each other’s district for what amounted to “sensitivity” training, a trek in the shoes of the other guy.

“If you go and break bread with somebody, actually look them in the eye and shake their hand and see, feel, touch, hear, listen to the people then, gosh, you figure out what you’ve got in common,” Chaffetz said today in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Cummings, 63, a Democrat from Maryland, one of the bluest states, represents a district that includes Baltimore, a densely urban district where seniors value their Social Security checks, young people struggle to stay in school, poor people learn new skills and the voters are Democrats.

Chaffetz, 47, a Republican from Utah, a fire-engine red state, represents a mostly rural, west central part of the state where the skies are wide, the voters are Republican, and the federal government, especially the land-owning Bureau of Land Management, is the enemy.

“I think he got an idea of what I’m fighting for,” Cummings said of Chaffetz’s visit to Baltimore last month. Cummings visited Utah last week.

Many voters are fed up with Washington’s stalemates, backbiting, yelling and finger pointing. Almost three-quarters of the voters say that Congress has been unproductive this year, including 50 percent who say it’s been very unproductive, according to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll.

That compares with 19 percent who said lawmakers have been productive, and another 3 percent who said they’ve been very productive. The July 28-31 poll of 634 registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Cummings and Chaffetz say they are making an extra effort to work together — and get something done — rather than beating each other up.

Standoffs in Congress often reflect the political division. Democrats control the Senate and Republicans control the House. The two lawmakers said almost everything must have bipartisan support these days or it dies.

“So you better darn well reach out, get out of your comfort zone and actually just don’t throw political barbs but actually do something,” Chaffetz said.

There’s another reason for these two political opposites coming together.

If Republicans maintain control of the House after the midterm elections, Chaffetz is a potential candidate to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And Cummings would remain the top Democrat.

That’s the panel that’s been a thorn in the side of President Barack Obama for years. It’s the panel that’s been looking into the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and investigating IRS probes into Tea Party groups.

“I want a relationship that will allow us to get things done,” Cummings said on MSNBC. Cummings has had a testy — even nasty — relationship with the current chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California.

Of course, these kinds of district swaps have been done for decades, and little changes, so call us skeptical. But we give them credit for trying.

“I was telling this group, `We got to find some common ground,’ and I liked what Elijah Cummings said” to a group in Utah, Chaffetz said on MSNBC. He said, `We can’t just get to common ground, we got to get to higher ground.”’

President Barack Obama gives a high-five to Jimmy Kimmel at the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 28, 2012 in Washington, DC.

President Barack Obama, who’s not shy about appearing on late-night talk shows, is going to bypass comedian Jimmy Kimmel, for now.

The entertainment news website TMZ said yesterday that Obama would appear on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in Los Angeles while making a three-day, West Coast fund-raising trip, starting today in Seattle.

Well, not so fast.

The White House acknowledged that, during planning for the trip, officials had been in touch with Kimmel’s folks about doing the show.

“We elected not to do it this time,” spokesman Josh Earnest said in an e-mail, “but hope we can arrange to do it in the near future.”

The White House offered no further explanation, though with conflicts in Israel and Gaza and Ukraine, along with the downing of a passenger jet, critics might have had a field day if the president took time out for an appearance on a comedy-focused show.

A spokeswoman for the show in California couldn’t be reached for comment before business hours.

Obama is still going ahead with events, scheduled weeks ago, to raise money for Democratic candidates in Seattle, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, where the president will mingle with Hollywood stars and technology moguls.

Republicans criticized Obama last week when attended two fundraisers in New York City on the same day Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by a missile in eastern Ukraine, and just hours after Israel began its ground assault into Gaza.

“This is what we used to call in the military A-W-O-L,” Arizona Senator John McCain said on Fox News.

The late night talk-show circuit is well trod ground for presidents and candidates from both parties. Obama has made five appearances as candidate or president on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” six on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” and at least two on the “The David Letterman Show” on CBS.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-07-22/obamas-jimmy-kimmel-live-date-scrubbed-fundraising-goes/feed/0Carney’s Countdown: Healthcare.gov Roll-Out Worst Dayshttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-19/carneys-countdown-healthcare-gov-roll-worst-days/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-19/carneys-countdown-healthcare-gov-roll-worst-days/#commentsThu, 19 Jun 2014 18:40:49 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=134079“I’ve got 36 more hours with this baby.” Jay Carney was talking about his government-issued BlackBerry in one of the last public comments before he forfeits his title as press secretary to President Barack Obama at the close of business tomorrow. Carney, a former White House correspondent for Time magazine, said he enjoyed his three […]

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney waves at the end of his last White House briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on June 18, 2014 in Washington, DC.

“I’ve got 36 more hours with this baby.”

Jay Carney was talking about his government-issued BlackBerry in one of the last public comments before he forfeits his title as press secretary to President Barack Obama at the close of business tomorrow.

Carney, a former White House correspondent for Time magazine, said he enjoyed his three and one-half years as the public face of the Obama administration, sparring with reporters, even when press briefings were testy and sometimes “frustrating.”

“There’s a tendency to assume that politics and political considerations drive every decision,” Carney said. “And I’m here to tell you that’s definitely not the case. I’m here to tell you, as somebody on the communications political side, it would have been a lot more convenient had it been the case, in some ways. But it’s just not. And that’s I think for the country a good thing.”

He recalled the absolute worst time, among hundreds of briefings: Last autumns when the administration botched the roll-out of Healthcare.gov, the online portal to “Obamacare,” the president’s signature health-care program for the uninsured.

The “pretty awful roll-out” was “completely of our doing,” Carney said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. “It was a sustained bad-news story for some time.”

Carney leaves at a time when the economy is gaining strength ever so slowly, confidence in Obama’s foreign policy is falling and a stew of foreign policy problems brews in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Ukraine and a half dozen other places.

‘‘I’m going to miss him a lot,” Obama said in announcing Carney’s resignation on May 30.

“Jay has become one of my closest friends, and is a great press secretary and a great advisor. He’s got good judgment. He has a good temperament. And he’s got a good heart.”

In the last day of answering questions from reporters, Carney, 49, who earned $172,200 a year, made these observations:

–Before taking the job as spokesman for the president, he had several practice sessions with former press Secretary Robert Gibbs. One of the worst things you can do is “lose your composure” on television.

–Access to the president is critical to the job. He said attending policy meetings allowed him to describe Obama’s position “because you develop an ear” for how and what the president is thinking.

–He said he never lied to the press. A press secretary succeeds “only if you tell the truth.” When confronted with a sensitive question, he said, he just didn’t answer the question.

As spokesman, he said, “I didn’t feel like I had a straitjacket on me when I took this job.”

–On talk that Carney, a former correspondent in Moscow, might be nominated ambassador to Russia, he said there were ’’some people’’ who gave it some thought. But it was “not something I ever expressed an interest in.” Furthermore, “More importantly, my wife’s not interested.”

Carney leaves the reins to Josh Earnest, 39, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, who joined Obama’s presidential campaign in March 2007 as his Iowa communications director. He’s considered well-liked by the White House press corps and is known in part for his narration of a weekly YouTube video on White House events.

In early June, a reporter spotted Carney leaving work at about 6:30 p.m., early by administration standards.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-06-19/carneys-countdown-healthcare-gov-roll-worst-days/feed/0Obama, Clinton ‘Buddies’ — Obama Says Sohttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-30/obama-clinton-buddies-obama-says/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-30/obama-clinton-buddies-obama-says/#commentsFri, 30 May 2014 17:27:11 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=132188Remember the frosty body language and tension that filled the atmosphere in the presidential campaign debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Here’s a reminder: “It is sometimes difficult to understand what Senator Obama has said because as soon as he’s confronted on it, he said that’s not what he meant,” Clinton said then. That […]

Hillary Clinton, U.S. secretary of state, left, listens while President Barack Obama speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in this Nov. 28, 2012 file photo.

Remember the frosty body language and tension that filled the atmosphere in the presidential campaign debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

Here’s a reminder: “It is sometimes difficult to understand what Senator Obama has said because as soon as he’s confronted on it, he said that’s not what he meant,” Clinton said then.

That was part of the Democratic debate in South Carolina on Jan. 21, 2008.

And today?

“Hillary and I are buddies,” the president said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” broadcast today.

Whatever lingering animosity there may have been, it’s gone.

“I think because we ran in the longest primary in history, and our staffs were doing battle politically,” it contributed to a perceived friction between the two, said the president, who went on to employ Clinton, the former first lady and senator from New York, as his secretary of state during his first term in office.

Obama-Clinton relations arose in the interview just as Clinton’s book, “Hard Choices” — due out June 10 — speaks highly of Obama. In one section previewed by the publisher, Clinton writes about Obama tracking down Osama bin Laden, and how his “acts were as crisp and courageous” as any she has seen.

Talking about this, that’s when Obama termed the two “buddies.”

“The perception was that this was kind of a marriage of convenience” when he named her secretary of state, the president said. “I‘ve always admired her. As soon as she got here, she couldn’t have been more effective, more loyal. And since that time, we’ve become really, really good friends.”

Obama said he had no inside knowledge to share on her plans for seeking the party’s nomination for president again in 2016:

“I don’t know what she’s going to decide to do, but I know that if she were to run for president, I think she’d be very effective at that.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-30/obama-clinton-buddies-obama-says/feed/0Obama’s Walk on the Outsidehttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-21/obamas-walk-outside/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-21/obamas-walk-outside/#commentsWed, 21 May 2014 21:08:36 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=131376American presidents don’t often walk the streets of Washington. Harry S Truman was the last president who often took strolls around town. But occasionally it happens. Such as today. “The bear is loose. I broke out of the cage,” President Barack Obama proclaimed today. The 44th president abandoned the typical motorcade and hoofed it to the Interior […]

Harry S Truman was the last president who often took strolls around town.

But occasionally it happens. Such as today.

“The bear is loose. I broke out of the cage,” President Barack Obama proclaimed today.
The 44th president abandoned the typical motorcade and hoofed it to the Interior Department, a few blocks away, with a few reporters trailing him. Some vehicles were standing by, in case it rained.

“The Bear is loose”, says Obama as he walks from the White House to the Department of the Interior greeting tourist. pic.twitter.com/uf52oZ3yKH

The president suggested to a department audience that he’s tired of being cooped up: “I think about the thrill of going on a hike without a security detail behind me. It’s a wistful feeling.”

The last time Obama left the White House complex on foot was Oct. 4, 2013, when he and Vice President Joe Biden walked to Taylor Deli, one very long block away on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, for lunch during the partial federal government shutdown.

Startled tourists from Israel and China got a chance today to chat with the president, who slung his suit coat over his shoulder wearing a button-down shirt and tie.

One of the Israelis, celebrating a birthday, got a shout-out from the president.

The task at hand at Interior was signing a proclamation designating the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in New Mexico.

House Speaker John Boehner criticized the designation, saying it undermines border security.

It fits well with tourism, the White House said in a message this week: “There is no time to waste to preserve our precious resources and to give a shot in the arm to local communities like Las Cruces.”

Finishing his speech, Obama walked back to the White House, encountering still more tourists.

Yet the Secret Service was on duty.

A woman from the Outer Banks of North Carolina said she was totally surprised. A moment before her encounter with the commander-in-chief, a Secret Service agent approached and said he needed to look in her bag.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-21/obamas-walk-outside/feed/0Cole on Minimum Wage: Let’s Make a Dealhttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-02/cole-minimum-wage-lets-make-deal/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-02/cole-minimum-wage-lets-make-deal/#commentsFri, 02 May 2014 13:20:39 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=129738 A top ally of House Speaker John Boehner says that if President Barack Obama wants to win an increase in the federal minimum wage, he ought to consider some sweeteners — such as the Keystone pipeline. “Would I look at a minimum wage increase if I thought there were other things attached to it […]

A top ally of House Speaker John Boehner says that if President Barack Obama wants to win an increase in the federal minimum wage, he ought to consider some sweeteners — such as the Keystone pipeline.

“Would I look at a minimum wage increase if I thought there were other things attached to it that would create jobs, like Keystone and additional things? Yeah, I think I would consider that,” Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said today on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. Cole currently opposes an increase.

Republicans earlier this week blocked the minimum wage bill from coming up for debate in the Senate. It would raise the wage to $10.10 an hour, in steps, from $7.25 now. There’s even less support for it in the Republican-led House, where many say an increase will cost jobs.

Yet a little good old fashion horse-trading might give the wage bill some traction, Cole says. If Obama really wants a wage increase, he needs to offer Republicans some incentives. Instead, Obama is using the minimum wage bill “as a political weapon.”

“If he were serious he would put something else on the table that would attract Republican support,” said Cole, who is close to Boehner, a Republican from Ohio. “So far he hasn’t done it, I think he enjoys the rhetoric of a debate.”

Obama needs to issue a permit to allow construction of the proposed pipeline transporting oil from the tar sands of Alberta to Gulfcoast refineries in the U.S. But the administration delayed a decision on the $5.4 billion project until after the November elections and possibly into next year, citing a legal challenge to the route it would take through Nebraska.

Keystone XL supporters are falling short in their efforts to round up the Democratic votes in the Senate to bypass the White House and approve the Canada-to-U.S. oil pipeline, reports Bloomberg’s Laura Litvan.

With elections seven months away, lawmakers have their eye on the calendar more than any legislative action. Cole was asked on MSNBC what will get enacted before November.

“Look, not a lot,” Cole said. “I think the big things largely are being pushed back by the election by both sides” and “that’s the political reality.”

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-05-02/cole-minimum-wage-lets-make-deal/feed/0Obama’s Egg Roll: Where the Wild Things Arehttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-21/obamas-egg-role-wild-things/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-21/obamas-egg-role-wild-things/#commentsMon, 21 Apr 2014 16:25:55 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=128375For about 45 minutes today, President Barack Obama set aside the worries of Ukraine and Russia and played with kids on the South Lawn of the White House. The president, joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, yelled “way to go,” and gave high fives to five-year-olds, and those older and younger, at the 136th annual […]

U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama watch children participate in the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn April 21, 2014 in Washington, DC.

For about 45 minutes today, President Barack Obama set aside the worries of Ukraine and Russia and played with kids on the South Lawn of the White House.

The president, joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, yelled “way to go,” and gave high fives to five-year-olds, and those older and younger, at the 136th annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.

About 30,000 kids and parents participated in the egg roll, listened to stories or participated in tennis and shooting baskets or other events as cartoon and storybook characters wandered the grounds.

Obama read a story: “Where the Wild Things Are,” a children’s tale by Maurice Sendak, from a stage decorated with red, orange and white tulips and red and blue hydrangeas. The president got into the story. He imitated the growling and snarling of wild animals and curled his fingers for claws. At one point, he challenged a kid to a staring contest.

On the basketball court, the president shot three times from the foul line and made one basket. “That’s it,” he said, probably because last year he shot 14 times and made one basket. No more humiliation this year.

On the tennis court his partner, a young boy, scored a winning shot. Obama gave the kid a fist bump, “even though you just wiped your nose.”

“This is the biggest event that we have at the White House all year long and it is our most fun event, because we have a chance to see families from all across the country coming through here,” Obama told his lawn audience. “My main and only job, other than officiating over the roll at some point, is to introduce, alongside the Easter Bunny, the person who makes this all possible — we love her dearly — my wife, the First Lady, Michelle Obama.”

The president on a roll: Photo by Roger Runningen.

The carnival-like atmosphere began at 7:50 a.m. EDT and lasts until 6:45 p.m.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-21/obamas-egg-role-wild-things/feed/0Obama Gives Clemency to Correct a Typohttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-15/obama-clemency/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-15/obama-clemency/#commentsTue, 15 Apr 2014 16:42:22 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=127897The scales of justices turned out to be in error for Ceasar Huerta Cantu, and President Barack Obama intervened today to make a correction. Cantu, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and money laundering in the Western District of Virginia. He was then sentenced 180 months, or […]

President Barack Obama sits behind his desk after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House

The scales of justices turned out to be in error for Ceasar Huerta Cantu, and President Barack Obama intervened today to make a correction.

Cantu, of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and money laundering in the Western District of Virginia. He was then sentenced 180 months, or 15 years, in prison.

Here’s the rub: because of a typographical error that was 42 months longer than he should have gotten.

The terms of his plea deal under sentencing guidelines were for what is called a base offense level of 34. Instead, he was assigned a base offense level of 36, increasing the penalty.
A judge ruled that Cantu didn’t learn about the mistake in time to correct it through the courts. The only remedy was an act of clemency by the president. So Obama today commuted Cantu’s sentence to 138 months.

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-15/obama-clemency/feed/0Bush (41) to Carney: ‘I Know Who You Are’http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-09/bush-41-to-carney-i-know-who-you-are/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-09/bush-41-to-carney-i-know-who-you-are/#commentsWed, 09 Apr 2014 21:33:10 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=127607Forty-four, meet 41. Former President George H.W. Bush was waiting at Bush Intercontinental Airport today for the visiting President Barack Obama. Seated in a scooter, the 41st president smiled as the Obamas came down the steps of Air Force One. The Obamas stood on either side of Bush and spoke with him for several minutes, […]

]]>http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-04-09/bush-41-to-carney-i-know-who-you-are/feed/0Obama: Putin Should Get Over Ithttp://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-03-28/obama-putin-should-get-over-it/
http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2014-03-28/obama-putin-should-get-over-it/#commentsFri, 28 Mar 2014 13:31:12 +0000http://blogs.edit.bloomberg.com/political-capital/?p=126147President Vladimir Putin should get over it. So says President Barack Obama. Putin should drop his grievance over the breakup of the old Soviet Union, Obama says in an interview with CBS News. “You would have thought that after a couple decades that there’d be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that […]

President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin after their bilateral meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18, 2012.

President Vladimir Putin should get over it.

So says President Barack Obama.

Putin should drop his grievance over the breakup of the old Soviet Union, Obama says in an interview with CBS News.

“You would have thought that after a couple decades that there’d be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that the path forward is not to revert back” to the Cold War, Obama said in an interview broadcast today on “CBS This Morning.”

Obama, nearing the end of a six-day trip that included meetings with allies about the response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, said it seems like Putin is trying to reverse history and recreate a dominant, influential nation bursting with nationalism.

Russia is now massing troops along the Ukraine border. It may be an effort to intimidate Ukraine or “it may be that they’ve got additional plans,” Obama said in the interview, which was recorded while the president was in Rome.

Putin “has said that he considers the breakup of the Soviet Union to be tragic” and that Western Europe and the U.S. have taken advantage of that.

Obama Suggests Putin Should Get Over Loss of the Soviet Empire

By Roger Runningen

March 28 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama said Russian President Vladimir Putin should drop his grievance over the breakup of the old Soviet Union.

“You would have thought that after a couple decades that there’d be an awareness on the part of any Russian leader that the path forward is not to revert back” to the Cold War, Obama said in an interview broadcast today on “CBS This Morning.”

Obama, nearing the end of six-day trip that included meetings with allies about the response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, said it seems like Putin is trying to reverse history and recreate a dominant, influential nation bursting with nationalism.

Russia is now massing troops along the Ukraine border. It may be an effort to intimidate Ukraine or “it may be that they’ve got additional plans,” Obama said in the interview, which was recorded while the president was in Rome.

Putin “has said that he considers the breakup of the Soviet Union to be tragic” and that Western Europe and the U.S. have taken advantage of that. Obama said Putin “wants to in some fashion — you know — reverse that or make up for that.”

“We have no interest in encircling Russia, and we have no interest in Ukraine, beyond letting the Ukrainian people make their own decisions about their own lives,” Obama said in the interview, part of which will be broadcast later on the “CBS Evening News.”